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But if this is the true account of the unity of soul, we must
be able to meet the problems that ensue: firstly, the difficulty
of one thing being present at the same moment in all things; and,
secondly, the difficulty of soul in body as against soul not
embodied.
We might be led to think that all soul must always inhabit body;
this would seem especially plausible in the case of the soul of
the universe, not thought of as ever leaving its body as the
human soul does: there exists, no doubt, an opinion that even the
human soul, while it must leave the body, cannot become an
utterly disembodied thing; but assuming its complete
disembodiment, how comes it that the human soul can go free of
the body but the All-Soul not, though they are one and the same?
There is no such difficulty in the case of the
Intellectual-Principle; by the primal differentiation, this
separates, no doubt, into partial things of widely varying
nature, but eternal unity is secured by virtue of the eternal
identity of that Essence: it is not so easy to explain how, in
the case of the soul described as separate among bodies, such
differentiated souls can remain one thing.
A possible solution may be offered:
The unit soul holds aloof, not actually falling into body; the
differentiated souls- the All-Soul, with the others- issue from
the unity while still constituting, within certain limits, an
association. They are one soul by the fact that they do not
belong unreservedly to any particular being; they meet, so to
speak, fringe to fringe; they strike out here and there, but are
held together at the source much as light is a divided thing upon
earth, shining in this house, and that, and yet remains
uninterruptedly one identical substance.
The All-Soul would always remain above, since essentially it has
nothing to do with descent or with the lower, or with any
tendency towards this sphere: the other souls would become ours
[become "partial," individual in us] because their lot is cast
for this sphere, and because they are solicited by a thing [the
body] which invites their care.
The one- the lowest soul in the to the All-Soul- would correspond
to that in some great growth, silently, unlaboriously conducting
the whole; our own lowest soul might be compared to the insect
life in some rotted part of the growth- for this is the ratio of
the animated body to the universe- while the other soul in us, of
one ideal nature with the higher parts of the All-Soul, may be
imaged as the gardener concerned about the insects lodged in the
tree and anxiously working to amend what is wrong; or we may
contrast a healthy man living with the healthy and, by his
thought or by his act, lending himself to the service of those
about him, with, on the other side, a sick man intent upon his
own care and cure, and so living for the body, body-bound.
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